Pages

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

The Big Catch Up

At last we are now back up and running on the internet and thanks to my brother Russell we are using a BT wifi hotspot so we will have unlimited data whilst we are living in Bollington.

We were going to go away in the motorhome but a few things happened that prevented a getaway, so we are now due to leave for a couple of days this Thursday instead.

A lot has been going on but it is too much to mention it all so I will do a quick skim- over-blog on the last week or so.

We are always popping over to Macclesfield to catch up with Elaine's dad, but the other day we caught up with him in his local. He introduced Sammie to the landlady's lovely pooch, Barney ...

We also took Dot and Gordon's (NB Ewn Ha Cul) cassettes up to Bosley services for an empty. Elaine was reminiscing back to her locking days ...

The next day we were up at 6.00 am to go for a cruise with Dot and Gordon up to Poynton, to fill their water tank, then return to Bollington aqueduct.

Bombo never forgets his position on a boat ...

It was lovely early morning cruise, albeit a bit on the chilly side ...

Elaine and Bombo enjoyed watching the world slowly go by from the side hatch. I still reckon one day we will live aboard again, it is a lovely life and so much better than bricks and mortar ...

Sammie checked out the view from the side hatch too ...

Just lovely ...

And here we are at Poynton, home of Bruce and Sheila's Braidbar boats ...

After a quick cuppa and a good old 'full English' (expertly cooked by Dot while we waited for the water to fill) we winded and headed back to Bolly ...

Once tied up back at Bolly Dot got a call from Sharon, one of the owners of NB Oakapple, asking if we would we fancy giving them a hand up Bosley locks. No probs, Dot and myself drove to Bosley shortly after. We parked the car at the top and walked the mile or so to the bottom lock. Disaster struck at the bottom when Dot went arse over tit and hurt her ankle badly. We didn't know whether it was a break or a strain, but one thing for sure was that she couldn't walk on it. Luckily some ramblers came rambling by and they gave me a hand to sit Dot on the lock side. I was going to take a pic of her lying in the mud, but that would have been a bit cruel :)

Once the boat came into the lock we put Dot on board. When we reached the top I drove her to Macc hospital, then went back to Bolly to pick up Gordon and Elaine. We then spent the next few hours in A&E waiting for Dot to be seen.

Thankfully, the ankle isn't broken so Dot is recovering slowly with the help of Elaine's inflatable walking boot! We bought it in Oz when Elaine broke her ankle a few years ago. It is a good bit of kit for broken/sprained ankles ...

The next day's job was to have a look at the generator on NB Oakapple. It had a problem with the fuel shut off solenoid and even though a new solenoid was fitted it wouldn't start.

Firstly I checked the solenoid and it was OK, plus there was plenty of fuel getting through to the injector but it made no attempt to fire up when cranked over. The compression felt very low when cranked by hand but I couldn't see how the two problems were linked.

They had some aero start onboard (ether/gasoline) but even that sprayed into the intake had no effect. This confirmed to me that there was insufficient compression. I still couldn't work out how a stop solenoid could fail. It had been replaced with a new one, then the engine had no compression.

After getting some more detailed history from Rich about when it stopped, it transpired that it actually packed up 15 months ago!!

Now it made sense! It probably had got some moisture in the cylinder and had been sat so long that the rings had jammed in or had crap under the valve seats. I made up a lovely concoction of aerostart, engine oil and WD40 and squirted into the air intake. After a couple of minutes I hand cranked it and the compression felt good. Rich hit the start button and she burst into life. They have now done a few hours on it and it is running fine plus most importantly it fires up from cold.

I actually quite enjoyed having a play and getting my hands dirty!

Sharon and Richard with their lovely boat, which is another Barn Owl, the same builder as the lovely Caxton ...

My brother is visiting us at the moment with his wife, Tracy and their doggie Elsa.

We have been visiting some local pubs and doing a few of the local lovely walks in the area ...

Yesterday was Elaine's dads 80th birthday, so we took him out to a local pub for lunch.

We also decorated the front of his house with balloons ...

Elaine's brother, Trevor also came with us for a lovely lunch at the Leather's Smithy just outside Langley. Here is Elaine showing Burt a power point presentation she had made up of his life ...

The weather, pub and food was absolutely superb. I would have to say it was probably the nicest pub grub we have had in years ...

The pub is located right by Macclesfield forest and the views were sublime. There were literally hundreds of walkers out enjoying the warm sunshine ...

Later in the day we walked up to the aqueduct to see Dot and Gordon with all three dogs. Elsa fitted in well with the boys ...

So now we are all up to date, with unlimited data to hand there should be no more problems!

I am writing this at 13.45 and I am still in bed as I seem to have caught some sort of wog. Hopefully it's nothing too bad 'cos it is shorts weather out there and I need to get out in it!

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Us

Why is this blog called the 'Manly Ferry' you may ask! Well, we are two poms - previously living in Sydney, Australia - which is the home of the real 'Manly Ferry'!
In March 2012 we left Oz and travelled to the UK where we moved aboard our Narrowboat 'Caxton', which we fully planned to rename 'NB The Manly Ferry' but it was too pretty to change it! We also brought our animals with us from Oz ... Bombo, Sam (dogs), Geoffrey, William and Jaffa (cats).
In April 2014 we sold our beloved narrowboat and replaced her with a motorhome, in which we explored a fair bit of Europe and a bit more of Blighty!
In Oct 14 we travelled to Spain (Mojacar) in our Citroen C3, along with our dogs, Bombo and Sam*, where we stayed in an apartment until the end of November, when we headed back to the UK. We were going to head back to Oz but had a change of plans so in Feb 2015 we bought ourselves a new motorhome, also called the 'Manly Ferry'.
So, we are now embarking on some brand new adventures in the UK and Europe !
My gorgeous wife Elaine passed away on 18th August 2016 aged 54. Now there is just me and the two doggies Bombo and Sammie